Schedule - Hatred against people on racial or religious grounds
Racial and Religious Hatred Bill
1:00 pm
Dominic Grieve (Shadow Attorney General, (Assist the Home Affairs Team); Beaconsfield, Conservative)
The Minister will correct me if I am wrong, but when the Public Order Act 1986 containing the race-hate provisions was enacted, the maximum penalty was not more than five years’ imprisonment, so race hatred was not an arrestable offence. There was no provision in that Act for a citizen to arrest, although provision had to be made especially for a police constable in uniform to carry out an arrest. It is only since the extension to seven years’ imprisonment that the race-hatred offence became an arrestable offence.